Written by

Detroit Free Press Washington Staff

WASHINGTON — Ten years later, the players have changed and so have the issues but the central question remains largely the same: Should a public university use race in determining who gets admitted?

In a landmark case decided a decade ago, the U.S. Supreme Court said the University of Michigan Law School could do so. Today, the high court will be asked if Michigan voters had the right in 2006 to strip that authority away.

The arguments — which get under way at 1 p.m. and are expected to attract vocal supporters for both sides outside the court — could reverberate across the nation: Eight states, including Michigan, bar the use of race in admissions policies. Many observers expect the state’s prerogative to be upheld when a decision comes down next spring or later.

But opponents argue Michigan’s law runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, setting too high a hurdle — that of changing the state constitution — for minorities wanting to rewrite admissions policies. No other group wanting to change admissions policies faces the same obstacle, they say.

State Attorney General Bill Schuette, in Washington to defend the Michigan law, said that argument turns the facts on their head, however, and quoted Chief Justice John Roberts as saying the best way “to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”